One of the big video games of the spring is Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. The game released this weekend and has largely garnered glowing praise across the board, which isn’t entirely surprising, given how successful 2019’’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was and Respawn’s general output. But in addition to being called one of the best Star Wars games in recent years, some have taken to calling it one of the brand’s best games ever.
Star Wars and video games have been friends for decades, dating all the way back to 1979 with a licensed tabletop game from Kenner. From there, the series went further into games with tie-in releases for Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, then expanded into a much larger enterprise. Some are based on the films (or set in the same relative time period), other older titles went into the Expanded Universe, but to date, there’s over 100 video games that bear the Star Wars name in fashion.
The LucasArts era that ran from 1993 to 2013 is generally considered the strongest, as it produced well-beloved titles such as Star Wars: Dark Forces, the Knights of the Old Republic series, and the two original Star Wars Battlefront games by Pandemic Studios. Back then, a lot of those games (if not all of them) were considered canon in some shape or form, which definitely made them more regarded in the eyes of fans. But when Disney elected to make its own canon and relegate the EU into Legends material, that also put Star Wars’ video game endeavors in a weird spot. EA had exclusive rights back then, resulting in two rebooted Star Wars Battlefront titles that had their fair share of controversies, the flight sim Star Wars Squadrons, and Respawn’s two Jedi games. EA’s exclusivity with the franchise has since ended: not only are we getting an eventual game from Ubisoft, there’s also Star Wars Eclipse, a game set during the High Republic era from Detroit Beyond Human developer Quantic Dream.
Since there’s been so many Star Wars games, and plenty more to come in the years ahead, we’d like to know some of your favorite from the long list of titles. Even if it’s been quite some time since you’ve played one, we’ve all got a game or two that we still fondly remember from our childhoods. (Star Wars Battlefront II and Force Unleashed 1, no one did it quite like you!) Let us know down in the comments below.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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